


On Edoras Heights

by valderys



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Genre: Community: talechallenge15, Extended Scene, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-26
Updated: 2010-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merry's thoughts as he watches Pippin ride away…</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Edoras Heights

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2004 for Marigold's 15th challenge - we had to write a fic that included a non-hobbit member of the Fellowship.

Merry looked out over the rough wooden parapet and stared into endless distance. Before him were shifting vistas of waving green grass, and the blinding emptiness of wide blue sky, but wherever he looked his gaze was inevitably drawn back to the tiny speck of white that was Gandalf on Shadowfax, riding away across the plain, and the even tinier bundle sat before him that was Pippin. Merry didn't even want to think about how small that made him feel in the grand scheme of things. How small that made Pippin.

He wondered how big an army would look on that same plain, tried hard to imagine it, given mounts the same size as Shadowfax, in browns and duns, and brave greys. All snorting and stamping in their serried rows, their riders' mail bright and jingling in the morning sunshine.

He couldn't. The sun was bright and the sky clear, but all Merry could imagine was the endless space crawling with the black pestilence of orcs, their stink strong in his nostrils now, as it had not been for days. He wanted to choke, but that would be stupid. Grishnákh, Ugluk and their bands were long dead, and Pippin and he were long rescued, there were no orcs crawling over the plain before him like maggots over meat. There was no need for this creeping horror that seized his guts as he stared out into the new dawning.

Except that he saw no dawning. Not for Men, not for the last hope of the West. Instead, he saw Pippin riding away with all the Enemy's forces bent on finding him, and he remembered saying him such a brusque goodbye. He remembered turning away from him. He remembered… The clink of metal caught his ears, shining like a single note of music in the crisp air. Aragorn. He stood next to Merry even now, towering above him, reminding him again of his smallness, his insignificance in the world. Of Pippin's.

How could he explain? Would Aragorn even understand? Words were choking him, caught behind his teeth, like that stink of the orcs in his nose, but he knew he had to say something. Aragorn deserved something, for following Merry up here, for caring, when there were far more important matters he should no doubt be attending to.

"He's always followed me, everywhere I went, since before we were tweens."

It was only murmured to the wind but it surprised Merry. He had simply meant to thank Aragorn, for his consideration, as the son of the Master should. But then, he thought, who would he normally confide in? Pippin, of course. Or Frodo. And now they were both gone. Into danger and death far from home. And he was left alone.

_"Merry? Merry? Slow down, Merry…"_

_"Leave me alone!"_

_"But I want to come with you!"_

_"We don't always get what we want, Pippin, and I'm just teaching you that little lesson early on. You'll thank me for it later."_

_"Don't understand… Merry? Why can't I come?"_

_"Because I don't want nuisancey babies in my way!"_

_"But I want to go too, Merry!"_

_"Well, you can't. You're too little."_

_"I won't always be little, and then you'll never be able to go anywhere without me!"_

_"Save me from that day when it comes, you horrible little piglet!"_

_"Oink, oink…"_

_"Oh, mercy – thank goodness my legs are longer than yours…"_

The memories crowded him now, whispering voices in his head that made him smile. Pippin could never bear to be left out of anything, could he? It hadn't been long before Merry had brought him along on all their little adventures. It hadn't been long before he couldn't imagine his life any other way.

Merry stared out at the beautiful plain, so empty and bare, so different to the rolling hills of home, and thought about this adventure. Thought about trying to get Pip to stay at home. He hadn't even tried, had he? He had known it would be useless. Pippin might be too young to be on this, their biggest adventure, but it would have taken a braver hobbit than he to try and stop him. But it was different now, wasn't it? Would Aragorn even understand? How could he?

"I would get him into the worst sort of trouble, but I was always there to get him out," Merry tried again, his voice faint and fond, "Now he's gone… Just like Frodo and Sam."

Gone, and with who knows what chasing him. Gone because Pippin couldn't stop himself looking into the palantir. He couldn't bear not to _know_. He had always been the same…

_"Hoy, Pip, what do you think you're doing?"_

_"Nothing!"_

_"Nothing, is it, and here you are in my room, which I am certain that I locked before I went to tea. Do you want to explain yourself then, or am I to take it that the catch just slipped under your hand?"_

_"I didn't mean anything, Merry. I just thought I'd… wait for you here, that's all!"_

_"Really. And it has nothing to do with the fact that it's my birthday tomorrow?"_

_"Umm. No?"_

_"Or that I haven't told you what your present is, despite you pestering me about it all night and day, ever since you arrived?"_

_"Of course not!"_

_"I see."_

_"But since you brought it up… Merry? What is my present going to be?"_

_"Didn't find it, did you?"_

_"Umm. No."_

_"Ha! Then you'll just have to wait."_

_"Merry..!"_

Merry came back to himself, as Aragorn put a solid hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. It felt large and warm, and was meant to be reassuring, Merry knew. He appreciated Aragorn's gesture, but rather than bringing comfort, instead it reminded him again how very small were hobbits in the grand scheme of things. How lonely he felt now that Pippin had gone. Now that Frodo and Sam were off alone in the wilds, goodness knows where, now that Pippin was being chased by the Enemy. Now that he had been left behind to tag along as best he may…

But it was a good thing that Aragorn was trying to do. It deserved acknowledgement. However small Merry felt in his heart, he could rise above that, he could… He looked up at the man, and tried to smile.

Ah, he should have known better, shouldn't he? It wasn't in Aragorn to make a meaningless gesture. It wasn't his fault that he was a man and not a hobbit. Ultimately that didn't matter, and Merry should have remembered. Aragorn did understand, he did – Merry looked up into the compassionate face, and the depthless blue eyes of a ranger, not a king. A man who had traveled widely, for long decades, leaving kith and kin far behind him, but fighting for them all none the less, with little thanks, and less reward. How could Merry forget that? How could his troubles seem anything but small in the face of that? Small, but never meaningless. That was what he saw in Aragorn's face, what he should have remembered for himself. It was the small things, a hearth protected, a child allowed to grow, that was why all of them were here, was it not? Why they were all fighting? For the small things. He should have remembered that.

"One thing I have learned about hobbits. They are a most hardy folk," Aragorn said, looking down, and Merry smiled properly then, or tried to. For Aragorn meant it well, as reassurance, but it reminded Merry of a different thing. It reminded him that they must all be strong in this war, all be tough, and that hope, in the end, didn't really matter.

"Foolhardy maybe. He's a Took." Merry offered, a poor jest but the best he could manage as he stared out once more across the plain.

The sunshine was bright, shining off Shadowfax's white coat, as he ran and ran. Merry found he couldn't look away from the speck that was Pippin leaving, on his way to Gondor. And he thought about Frodo and Sam, alone in wild. And then thought about himself. He loved Pippin, with such aching force, and yet he'd said him such a brusque goodbye, precisely because he did love him. It hurt too much to do more. But in the end that didn't matter either, did it?

They were there to do their best. To strive, and seek, and maybe fail, but know that they had offered all they had. That was why they had come, wasn't it? Merry knew that. He'd known that for a very long time. And how could he do less than any other?

Boromir had given his life for him, Aragorn gave his comfort, Pippin... gave him his strength. What could Merry give them in return? Nothing less than everything. That was all he had to give. Everything. He could only hope it would prove enough.


End file.
